


Curiosity

by erikssiren



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 19:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erikssiren/pseuds/erikssiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra, a janitor at the hospital, goes unseen so she sees everything. Like the strange man who comes in the middle of the night but visits no one.  Vampire!AU, Vampire!Jake Written for the LITSvdayexchange on Tumblr.</p>
<p>Happy Valentine's Day, bittenforyou! I hope you like it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> So I originally had a completely different idea for this V-Day fic but then the idea of Jake being a vampire popped into my mind and I went with this instead! I do have a lot of the other fic written, so maybe I'll finish it and post it later. I also realized after writing this that it was not in the canon concerning vampires in The Librarian movies, but it's more similar to that of The Vampire Diaries. I just haven't seen The Judas Chalice in so long that I didn't want to mess it up. Also, writing Cassandra is hard so I hope I got her right!  
> Un-beta'd so please excuse any mistakes.  
> I hope you enjoy it, bittenforyou!
> 
> The characters are not mine, but the story is. Please don't copy this and claim it as your own. There has been a problem with this lately and I wanted to add this here.

The thing about being a janitor is no one really pays attention to you. When you’re that unseen, you tend to notice things. Like when the same man comes into the hospital in the middle of the night for the past few months. She wouldn’t have given him a second thought if he hadn’t been trying so hard not to be seen.

  
Dressed in a plaid shirt on top of a plain t-shirt; jeans and oddly enough, cowboy boots, he was dressed casually enough for the daytime but far too nice for three in the morning. Usually at that time of night the visitors were in their pajamas or at least their clothes were rumpled from sleeping in an uncomfortable chair.

  
He also tended to walk very determinedly; the air of someone who knew exactly where they were going. Even visitors who had come to hospital for months on end would looked unsure; they didn’t know how much longer their loved one would be there. Only doctors and nurses had a gait has confident as him. But he clearly was neither.

  
For the third time in as many months, she watched him as he strode down the hallway with his head high and gaze forward, though he looked at no one. With her duties already complete and her curiosity piqued, Cassie put the mop back on the cart and followed him as he walked down a service stairwell and into an abandoned hallway.

  
For a moment, as they walked further down empty hallways she panicked; she’d never been to this part of the hospital’s lower levels before. But finally the stranger stopped and she saw a familiar face: Ezekiel, a resident who always gave her his extra Jell-o cup from his lunch tray. She watched in confusion as he greeted the stranger as an old friend before unlocking a heavy metal door. Both men scanned the hallway and Cassie ducked back around the corner she had been peering. She counted 60 seconds, listening to a pair of footsteps echo into the distance before she looked around the corner again. Both men were gone and the metal door was propped open. Quietly she sneaked down the hallway, then cautiously stood in the open doorway.

  
The stranger had his back to her as he leaned over what looked like a chest freezer, a black duffel bag sat open on the floor and she could see the bulges of something in it. She couldn't hold back a gasp as she watched him pull a bag of blood out and placed it in the bag. Suddenly he was in front of her and with impossible speed he pulled her into the room and pushed her against a stone wall, pinning her arms to her side.

  
“Who are you? What do you want?” He growled. She whimpered and shuts her eyes, trying to shield herself from the intensity of him.

  
“No one,” she whispered quickly. “Nothing.”

  
“Why did you follow me?” He demanded again in a growl.

  
“When people don’t see you, you tend to see people,” she let out in a rush. “Like Mr. Johnson who tells his oncologist he has family who visits him but no one comes. Or Nurse Donna who buys herself flowers from the hospital gift shop and tells her co-workers it’s from an admirer.” She opened her eyes and willed herself to hold his gaze. His eyes, a clear blue, bore into hers. “Or you, who comes every few weeks, when visiting hours are over. Three trips in three months,” she continued almost involuntarily. She could feel her brain doing the math and her eyes flickered over the black bag and she squeezed them shut against the oncoming hallucination. “Three trips to fill a duffel bag with bags of blood…a bag that size can fit 60 pint bags…60 divided by 20 is three…three-three is pie,” she inhales the sweet scent of her memory. “Pie is my grandmother making mincemeat pie for Christmas when I was three, just before my parents told me Santa Claus wasn’t real, and I was so proud I helped her by pouring the filling from the jar…” Her eyes fluttered open as she trailed off and he’s staring at her almost in awe. His grip, once confining was now comforting, supporting her by the elbows as she slumped against the wall.

  
“You-“ he started, his eyes focusing lower on her face before looking back up quickly. The blue of his eyes look muddled, unnatural. “Your nose is bleeding,” he choked out before crossing to the other side of the room.

  
“Oh,” she said, surprised. She pulled out a clean rag from her pocket and wiped at her nose. The white cloth came back spotted with crimson. “Sorry, does blood make you squeamish?”

  
He let out a huff of laughter, almost hysterical but definitely at something she didn’t understand. “Not exactly,” he said only before turning back towards the freezer.  
“Why are you taking that?”

  
“Do you know what’s goin’ on here?” He asked, turning his head slightly to glance over his shoulder. It was then she heard the slight twang of a Southern accent. She licked her lips nervously as she looked around the windowless room, the only light source from the open freezer and a flickering fluorescent light overhead.

  
“You’re stealing blood,” she ventured nervously. “On average 60 pints per month.” Her brain was ticking through the math and squeezed her eyes shut as struggled to keep the words from spilling out of her mouth. “The average body holds 10 pints of blood…six humans a month of blood…blood is coppery, the copper of pennies the copper of-“

  
A comforting hand on her elbow grounded her but she didn’t dare open her eyes. “Ezekiel helps you get the blood. And I followed you here.”

  
“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice soft. She should feel his body heat. “He’s good a swiping things people don’t think need swiping.”

  
“Stealing,” she supplied, her eyes still shut. She could feel a headache coming from the effort her brain was putting into adding together the evidence, but she was afraid of the answer.

  
“People need that blood,” she continued with a bit of accusation in her voice. “You’re taking that from people who need it.”

  
“It’s old,” he shot back. “Almost six weeks old – then they can’t use it anymore and they destroy it.”

  
“But why do you need it?” She asked, though she knew she shouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter, I won’t tell anyone. Please, I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go.”

  
“What do you think is goin’ on here?” He repeats, enunciating each word carefully, though he sounded sad. “Open your eyes.”

  
She did so with an almost silent whimper and his eyes are redder now and the whimper repeated itself louder. “That much blood could be used for a blood transfusion. Several, in fact. Are you sick?” She asked, answering her own earlier question as her voice squeaked slightly.

  
“You can see that I’m not,” he replied and smirked when she involuntarily looked him over.

  
“I am,” she said instead of what she was thinking because it was impossible and she should never have watched that horror movie marathon with Ezekiel last week. The man in front of her raised and eyebrow and she thought he looked concerned. She raised a hand up to tap her temple and realized he was still holding her other arm (and she liked it).

  
“I have tumor,” she said and this time she knew there was sadness in his face for her. “Inoperable and the size of a grape. I used to like grapes,” she continued with a sad smile. “Ezekiel calls it a brain grape and I really wish he wouldn’t.” He smiled softly. “It’s why numbers are colors and I smell things when I do math. I’m going to die, one day. Maybe today, maybe in a year. But one day.”

  
They stood there, closer than two strangers should, for several moments and Cassandra began to feel like she never wanted him to let go when he seemed to remember why they were there and he did let go of her arm.

  
“You shouldn't have come down here,” he scolded as he began to pace. She shivered at the loss of him, though she realized he had never felt warm.  
“Are you going to kill me?” She asked after a moment of silence. He sighed, as though he had been contemplating the answer.

  
“I don’t want to kill you,” he answered and it sent a chill down her spine.

  
“I won’t tell anyone,” she repeated and tried to shuffle back towards the open doorway. But then he turned toward her and she stopped at the knowing look in his eye.

  
“I don’t know you,” he said. “I can’t trust you to keep quiet.” He stalked forward and panic overwhelmed her as she tried to run towards to door, which he shut with a slam.

  
“Please,” she shouted as he gripped her arm. “I don’t have anyone to tell,” she continued desperately. “No one listens to me, I live in alone in an apartment building where everyone keeps to themselves.” He stopped, his eyes now more red than blue and it was unnerving to see the pity in their inhuman color.

  
“My parents couldn’t afford the treatments and while they were proud of a genius daughter they didn’t want one with a tumor in her head that caused her to hallucinate.” She turned her ahead away from the overwhelming sympathy coming off in waves from his cold body.

  
In a flash the door flung open and he stood on the other side of the room. “Get out of here,” he growled as he stuffed more blood bags almost violently into the duffel. “Before I change my mind.”

  
Fear thrummed through her veins and yet she couldn’t bring herself to move.

  
“Get out!” He shouted and she turned to do so before a question, one that had sat in the back of her mind this entire time, forced itself out.

  
“Does it…” she paused and he turned back towards her, fury and pain and a host of other emotions playing across his strained face. “Does it fix everything?” She couldn’t bring herself to even voice her suspicion of who-what-he was. “To become….does it cure anything?” The anger receded in his stance and he slammed the chest shut.

  
“I don’t know,” he zipped the duffel bag up roughly and pulled her out of the room as he shut the door behind them. “I know it cures wounds,” he explained and Cassandra guessed it was from personal experience. “I do some research, ask some questions. Do you want me to find out? Because even if you never tell anyone, you’re still in danger.”  
“From who?” She asked.

  
“Others like me,” he answered cryptically. He stopped, starring at her intently. “Even if it didn’t, would you want to?” Something like hope bloomed in his eyes but it vanished almost as quickly as she paused. He began walking again and she ran to catch up.

  
She contemplated the question as they continued down the hallway, trying to figure out the conversation they weren’t having.

  
“Would I have to stay with you?” She asked, not sure if she wanted to or not. The anger in him frightened her and but she has had that much anger in her since she was 15 and the doctor gave her the news. He was…rough, but had moments of tenderness. He pitied her, though, and she had had enough of that in her life.

  
“Only if you want to,” he said evenly and she glanced at him as they reached an upper hallway, the now brighter walls reflecting more light against his pale skin. She wondered how she didn’t see it before – the classic signs – given how clearly she saw them now.

  
“I think I would like to,” she said quietly but he turned his head to glance at her. “If you think you can trust me.”

  
“Don’t trust a lot of people,” he answered gruffly as they entered the lobby of the hospital; her cart still stood where she left it. She stopped at it and he paused beside her. “It took me a lot time to realize I was giving away my trust too easily. It’s been easier on my own.”

  
“Maybe it’s time for a change,” she suggested, keeping her voice neutral. He stared at her, as though he was seeing her for the first time as well.

  
“Maybe,” he conceded before he strode toward the door. “See you around,” he called casually over his shoulder.

  
Cassie watched him go and for the first time in 10 years, she felt giddy with hope.


End file.
